Cops: Uncle stabbed nephew in chest while he slept

WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — After a family fight turned into a homicide over the weekend, police are revealing more about a case in which they say a man murdered his nephew and injured his brother with a kitchen knife.

Jared Rogers, 20, was due to be arraigned at Kent County District Court Monday. Instead, Rogers was arraigned at Kent Hospital, after being admitted for a medical condition. There he entered not guilty pleas to one count of murder and two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon in a dwelling/house.

According to the attorney general’s office, Rogers was held without bail and ordered to have no contact with David Rogers.

Warwick Police Chief Col. Stephen McCartney told Eyewitness News Jared Rogers stabbed his nephew in the chest while he slept, then went into his brother’s room and attacked him. McCartney said David Rogers woke up as his brother was about to stab him and was able to somewhat deflect the attack, but was still stabbed in the abdomen and upper chest area.

“He went to school, he graduated. He didn’t do anything. He didn’t deserve this,” she said.

Rogers said her son stopped a fight involving his uncle several hours before the homicide. Col. McCartney confirmed that police were called around 1:46 a.m. Saturday by Jared Rogers himself.

Police said they removed Rogers from the home because his mother, who also lived there, wanted him out following a fight. But they did not charge him with a crime, McCartney said, because no one in the family had made a criminal complaint against him. Due to his intoxicated state, police brought him to a detox center run by Kent Hospital.

Hours later, police say a sober adult signed Rogers out of the hospital, and dropped him off near his home. The call for the stabbing came in at 5:30 a.m.

“He ends up going back home and killing everybody. How did he get out? I don’t understand this,” Andrea Rogers said.

McCartney said nothing about Rogers indicated to police that he might be dangerous.

In a police report, one of the officers who responded to the initial call of a family fight describes dropping Rogers off at the detox center: “While transporting Jared, he was cordial and making conversation.”

He said he wanted to go to college, something police described as “future oriented.”

“Absolutely nothing, at that point in time, would give you some indication that this individual would end up being a homicidal maniac,” McCartney said.

David Rogers, the surviving stabbing victim, has been interviewed by police, though McCartney said there will be more official statements to come. He said David woke up just before he was stabbed.

“David wakes up, hearing him say something like ‘I’m gonna get you now,’ and sees the knife starting to come down,” McCartney explained. “He manages to block some of the force of the knife thrust coming at him.”

McCartney said David Rogers now says Jared Rogers pulled a knife on the family at the initial fight, but he did not report it to police.

Jared’s sister Andrea said she never thought her brother would get so violent.